All Energy from Carbon-Free Sources: Gore’s Green Overhaul is Boom Opportunity
Carbon Emissions, Energy Supply, Renewable Resources, Sustainable Development
The former vice president of the United States, Al Gore, yesterday announced an ambitious goal, which he says the nation can meet, of transitioning its entire domestic energy production to clean resources by 2018. The speech marks a major moment in the process of transition to the green technology boom, which will be the next step in the ongoing economic development of the United States and the world. Gore, however, warned that failing to meet the challenge to date means “the United States of America as we know it is at risk”.
The United States currently consumes roughly one-quarter of all the world’s petroleum, while representing just 4.6% of the world’s population. Experts calculate that global energy production is at or near its peak, and total demand is fast expanding beyond production capacity. In a globalized economy, with major developing nations like China and India expanding GDP by between 7% and 10% per year, this imbalance is untenable. So crude oil prices are shooting up, and the US is increasingly at risk for economic hardship, perhaps already in motion, as a result of coming market corrections.
Mr. Gore opened his address [full text] with a caution to those who fail to perceive the complexity of a new kind of security risk:
There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a present danger. In such moments, we are called upon to move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes. Those who, for whatever reason, refuse to do their part must either be persuaded to join the effort or asked to step aside. This is such a moment.
The fact is, moods are changing, and the political environment has evolved dramatically in the last two years. Gore cites this trend as cause for hope in this moment of economic and environmental peril, and the best reason for calling for this grand infrastructure readjustment. Skeptics who have long cited the “prohibitive cost” of making the adjustment to clean energy technologies are out-argued by the soaring cost of carbon-based fuels: their historic efficiency is no longer guaranteed, and the economy as a whole is being magnetized to new technological opportunities to reduce energy overhead.
Noting the same problem of oil “addiction” Pres. Bush cited in his 2006 State of the Union address, Mr. Gore urged Americans to think with a can-do attitude about how to make fundamental changes to the core energy metabolism of our economy, specifically:
our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges – the economic, environmental and national security crises. We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change.
How does an entire nation come together to undertake such a massive energy overhaul —priced at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion, according to a range of analysts from competing disciplines—, if not by using the levers of democratic political pressures to steer the entire economic output of the nation in a new direction? Moving public awareness can be as unwieldy as steering the ship of state, and in an economy that represents nearly one-third of the entire global economic output, the task is daunting.
But among the most instructive observations nestled within the text of Gore’s call for a new clean energy economy touches on the cost of making the infrastructure adjustment: while some critics continue to worry about impossible economic costs, ignoring what potential long-term benefits there might be, they overlook entirely the fact that the energy infrastructure of the United States is to some degree in poor repair.
Outages of the last few years have cost billions of dollars in lost business and damages, and upgrading the systems for traditional combustible-fuel-based power generation is not inherently less expensive than building a renewable infrastructure. This challenge is economic to begin with, so if the two economic challenges are treated with one solution, the combined cost of repairing what we have and reaching a sustainable future comes down dramatically.
Some members of the Democratic leadership in Congress are unnerved by the timing of Gore’s proposal, saying it comes shortly after a major emissions-reduction bill failed to pass the Senate and at a time when the Bush administration is pushing new drilling as the answer to high energy prices. Democrats don’t want to be seen as being on the side of an expensive government-spending scheme to abandon fuels that power the American economy and whose leading purveyors are the most profitable businesses in the nation.
But there is more to the timing that ignoring the whim of the Congress. Pres. Bush’s announcement he will life the executive ban on new offshore drilling has been met by some critics —environmentalists, economists, and even energy-industry analysts— as not well-attuned to the causes of the current price crisis. Major leading American corporations have publicly called for the government to speed new funding to the twin problems of tackling climate-altering emissions and overhauling the energy and vehicle-fuel infrastructure, so that business will know to follow what’s laid down as a federal funding priority.
Increasing numbers of observers and consumers have made known —anecdotally, in surveys and in formal organized campaigns— their desire to see the kind of assistance oil firms need to get serious about becoming energy-sourcing firms, diversifying their product, even as contaminant or heat-trapping emissions incur fines and heavier taxes.
The major import of Gore’s speech may not lie in the fine points of fact or analysis, but in the declaration of a national goal. If the banner of a clean energy economy is taken up by industry, commerce, politicians and consumers and voters alike, then the path to that goal will begin to be more visible, more comprehensible. We will be able to try and refine a number of potential contributing solutions that will get us closer to optimizing our use of energy without having to drastically cut back on our energy consumption.
July 18, 2008 :: by j.robertson
THE END OF THE DINOSAUR CIVILIZATION (FOSSIL FUELS, NUCLEAR) AND THE EMERGING CONFLATION OF GLOBAL WARMING, GLOBAL CIVIL WAR, WORLD ECONOMIC DEPRESSION AND THE EXTINCTION OF THE HUMAN SPECIES…
According to an old story, a lord of ancient China once asked his physician, a member of a family of healers, which of them was the most skilled in the art. The physician, whose reputation was such that his name became synonymous with medical science in China, replied,“My eldest sister sees the spirit of sickness and removes it before it takes shape, so her name does not get out of the house. My elder brother cures sickness when it is still extremely minute, so his name does not get out of the neighborhood. As for me, I puncture veins, prescribe medicines, and massage skin, so from time to time my name gets out and is heard among the lords.
(Dr. Thomas Cleary’s introduction to Sun Tzu’s Art of War translation – note: Sun Tzu was writing at a time when Chinese civilization was embroiled in civil wars.)
War, Global Warming, financial calamity, starvation and suffering has become pornographic fodder world-wide.“The best and brightest†participate and profit by it regardless of their being on the right, left or the middle.
Chaos and Disorder are imbued and dispersed in our Knowledge-, Economic-, Climate-, even Wisdom networks of knowing. Politicians run amuck and Corporations have their blinders on to everything except what legally they are obligated to do – that is to make profit above all else.(see The Corporation documentary - What is a corporation? http://www.youtube.com/watch... )
Too late is it now for long-term planning in the phase-out of King Coal and other Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power and Weapons.
All Tribes, Nations, Communities and Peoples must call and ACT for the Full Abolition of King Coal, Fossil Fuels, Nuclear Power and Weapons immediately.
Abolition of King Coal, Fossil Fuels and Nuclear power and Weapons Everywhere!
Call for the Abolition in your community now-
Stop the Global Warming Machines!
Stop the Coming Genocides - Food/Water/Energy Chaos!
Divest from King coal
For rest of document see
http://quebec.indymedia.org/en/node/28427 (previous document)
http://floodiceorfire.wordpress.com (this document)
http://burningdinosaur.wordpress.com/
Mr. Gore’s vision overlooks the one fact that will render all his plan’s meaningless. Overpopulation! Indeed, the benefits of the Gore plan would be marginalized by the massive population growth our nations experiences through immigration. With no valid plan for stabilizing population growth, particular population growth through immigration, we cannot possible “dig fast enough to get out of a rapidly filling hole”. Too many people competing for the same limited resources cannot be considered sound, sustainable economic, environmental, social or cultural policy!
all US Energy from renewable
Actually, overpopulation is a global problem, and it is one of the factors that most necessitates this sort of initiative. For instance, if China were to have the same automotive use per-capita, and the same land area per vehicle devoted to paved surfaces, that we have in the US, they would have more cars than the entire world combined right now, and they would lose a vast amount of arable land, making one of the world’s richest agricultural powers a region faced with chronic famine.
And population density in the industrialized world tends to trend toward birth rates below replacement (rates like 1.6 children on average per couple), which can cripple a nation’s pension and social security systems and drive economic degradation. Immigration at the right level is an economic driver which contributes to growth and helps keep the tax-base expanding without hurting the average consumer.
The US is an example at present of a nation that dynamically integrates a large immigrant population, and balances the influence of that influx with its basic economic needs. This may sway one way or the other.
Overpopulation as a factor in global resource depletion is an serious problem, and rapid population growth in the US means many more people consuming at much higher than average rates, but an energy economy based entirely on carbon-free resources will help prevent the depletion of vital natural services like ecosystem resilience, climate stability and clean water availability.